Happy Howl
by LoweFantasy
Summary: It was a good thing he had beaten Ban unconscious, because Meliodas hugged the bundle of wrinkly newborn to his chest and bawled. A series of fluffy oneshots that take place after the series.
1. The End

Happy Howl

By LoweFantasy

1

Like every big, fantastical, world saving event, the Demon King vanished within an all blinding blend of Meliodas's darkness and Elizabeth's light. They had managed to get to this point by combining her healing power to him so that no matter what his father did, he'd heal instantaneously, but while that proved the perfect defense, you didn't win wars or break curses with defense.

Still, lost in the over blow of sound and light, he could feel her knitting any remains of his scratches and bruises.

Then his natural balance found the ground again. He blinked hard and desperately probed his surroundings for his father's presence. Nothing returned to him but blue skies blasted of every cloud and broken rubble.

And then he felt it. The curse, lifting. He gasped so hard he thought his stomach might burst from the effort. Had immortality always been so physically heavy? Did Ban feel the metal cloak on his shoulders as well?

But he only took a moment to register it before spinning around in search of her. When he didn't see any speck of her or her goddess wings among the rubble or skies, his seven hearts seized.

"Elizabeth? Elizabeth!"

No, there she was. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her.

Within an instant he was there, picking her up from a deep crevice created by their power. She was battered, and it hurt to see, but she was looking up at him with that same smile she had three thousand years ago.

"It's gone," she breathed.

But it wasn't until what remained of their friends had gathered them up, all the wounds tended to, the food made, and all the tankards of ale passed out that Meliodas felt it—and boy, did he feel it, hard then a kick to the stomach by a tyrant dragon. Elizabeth had been crying tears of joy the entire time, but he didn't until then.

Once he started, the powerful body that had survived the onslaught of hell began to tremble. He had to sit down and turned his face to hide his moment of being overwhelmed. He could remember many times when his emotions made it near impossible to breathe, but never like this.

"Meliodas?"

Elizabeth's bandaged touch on his shoulder just served to completely undo him. A high pitched, strangled sort of groan escaped him.

The goddess grew alarmed. "Meliodas? What's wrong?"

He had no room to feel horror as he heard the room grow quiet and his stifled sobbing louder. All he could feel was the enormous hot balloon swelling him to the bursting point and pressing hard against his throat.

And like that, he lost control.

He spun around, buried himself in her breasts, and howled.

It was done. It was done. It had been so god damn long, but now it was done and she was here and alive and safe and—he could hardly breathe.

A half drunk Ban and a shrunken Diane were on him instantly, not understanding and worried he was in pain. Gilthunder shouted for Merlin. King started circles around their heads, clutching tight to his mossy pillow. Hawk squawked some gibberish about death curses and the after effects of eating too many demons.

But Elizabeth understood and embraced him tight enough to smother any normal man. She was far more graceful with her euphoria and didn't howl, but a fresh round of tears dampened his hair.

"Never again," she murmured. "Never again."

Gods above, he loved her.

And it was finally, finally okay.


	2. The Unasked For Wedding

2

The thought of marriage didn't even cross his mind. After three thousand years of…whatever they had gone through, it seemed redundant. Hadn't they already proven their loyalty and love to each other? Not to mention it was originally a ceremony for humans, whose natural knack of being able to change heart at a whims notice made every other race wary of them. And if the ceremony was redundant, so was the wedding night. Like he'd hold back after all those years. He'd ravished her from dawn to dusk, then kept turning on her so often that his friends decided to take a week long hiatus or risk scaring themselves.

But, still, on an especially beautiful day, he let Ban drag him into some stupid fancy clothes and withstood King tying back his hair. Not much could ruin the high he'd been riding since the lifting of his curse, so they even managed to drag him around town till Gowther sent some kind of mental message only they could hear.

On returning to his pub and home, a heavenly vision awaited him on his front doorstep. For a moment, he thought he really understood why weddings were so important.

Elizabeth had become other worldly in her beauty. The white dress billowed about her like silken rivers of pearl and clouds, hugging her curves as he wished he only could. Then her silver hair, usually down, piled atop her head to accent the swan like neck he planned on appreciating in depth once his friends had their fill, and her sky bright eyes…

Once more, his friends were able to get him to do whatever they want. He more or less became their virtual puppet as they mince walked him to Elizabeth's side at the food of the pub's steps. He was ashamed to admit, later on, that he didn't even notice that it was King Bertra who conducted the ceremony. Even when the man spoke and eventually asked Meliodas if he accepted Elizabeth as his wife, all he could comprehend was her.

Three thousand years. It had been so long. So long. He had been so afraid…

It was a blessing that she leaned down to kiss him after the I do's, because he could feel another howl swelling up his throat.


	3. A Friend, A Clone

3

In the past, no one but Elizabeth, and maybe Gowther (because he was no respecter of persons when it came to his excavations into minds), knew that he felt fear, and what could ever scare the unshakable Sin of Wrath.

But not even Elizabeth knew of his fear as he watched her swell with child. Demons, monsters, blood-thirsty Holy Knights, immortal gods, those he could fight. Those he could protect her against. But complications of pregnancy, or even just the normal annoying symptoms that made her sick and uncomfortable—against those, he was powerless. And since she was the only remaining goddess on this plain, there were no other gods to heal her, and the druids only let themselves be found when they felt like it. And though Merlin knew a good deal, even she couldn't use healing magic.

The knight Elizabeth went into labor, he ended up having to leave her side or end up killing everything within a hundred miles of them. The floorboards had done nothing to cover her screams, and he couldn't help but feel agonized at the fact that it was his fault. He was the great evil putting her through this, not some curse or monster.

Since Elaine had come to assist with the birth, and Ban and Elaine were a package deal, the Fox Sin happened to be there, not to mention stupid enough to follow the unhinged demon out the pub and across the grass.

"Relax, man, baby birthing is as natural as it gets. And she's a tough girl, she'll be fine."

Meliodas kept walking. If he stopped, he didn't know what would happen. Even though he had stopped being able to hear her after closing the door, her cries of pain still echoed in his ears. His fault.

The night sky had been especially clear that night. Not shooting stars made vast crosses. No black clouds spread across the horizon. Just spills of violet velvet and glittering pinpricks. The grassy hillside Mama Hawk had dug into had that musky, earthy smell that only night time could give, as though the land were trying in vain to attract the sky to lie upon it.

"Hey, Cap'n."

Meliodas felt a loud crunch of a beetle underfoot. Elizabeth's screams had started to double on one another.

If she died this time, there would be no resurrection. That would be it.

Suddenly, a heavy blow knocked him across the head. The force flung him down the rest of the hill and face first into the dirt below.

He whipped back to his feet, snarling.

Standing where he had once been on the hillside was Ban, arms crossed, expression droll.

"Ban, no."

"You needed it."

Then Ban was in front of him, fists nearly invisible, fang flashing, tongue lolling out.

Meliodas met every fist, the frantic violence in him fit to burst.

But it didn't take too long for him to figure out what his best friend was on about. As their fists became thunderous sonic booms and great heaps of dirt and grass flew into the air, the great anxiety within him found an outlet.

In his defense, Ban had initiated it.

When Merlin drifted out to give him the little smile that assured him all was well, Ban's immortality still had yet to catch up with the beaten smear of flesh ground into what had once been a nice, grassy hillside. The sky had already begun to pink with dawn, and Meliodas could smell something wonderful around the corner and up the stairs.

She definitely didn't look as resplendent as she had on their wedding day. Somehow she had gotten her eyes bruised and the pallor of her skin brought it out all the more. She still had that slightly swollen look that had come a few days prior. When she smiled at him it was, well, not her best or most energetic. But there was a sleepy contentment to her that reassured him.

And then she gave him a tiny, red, wriggling little person with wide open, dark eyes.

"His eyes are open already?" he asked.

Merlin, who he had forgotten about, cackled from the doorway. "He's a human, not a newborn puppy. Of course he can open his eyes."

If that was the case, what else could he do? Meliodas couldn't help but think as he carefully peeled back the blanket and observed all the other little baby traits that would mark this particular little person as his.

But when he came back to the big dark eyes watching him with unexpected awareness beneath a tuft of pale, colorless hair…he couldn't find it.

"I think you've made some mistake, Elizabeth," he said, unpeeling the boy entirely from his wrappings to get down to his toes. "Besides the tiny penis, you've just made a clone of yourself. Trust me, I know. I got to carry you around as a baby for quite some time."

Elizabeth's smile wilted away. For a terrifying second, he wondered just what horrible mistake he had made.

As though to verify this, the tiny, red, wrinkly boy in his hands scrunched up his face and let out a mewling cry that took all the effort of his tiny body, even puckering up the little yellow nub of his umbilical cord till it laid flat on his navel.

Meliodas jerked into action, quickly swaddling the boy as he remembered baby Elizabeth liking and popped on his heels to bounce him.

"There there, little fellow, I'm sorry for being a jerk like that. Daddy's sorry, really."

Perhaps it was hearing himself say the word 'Daddy' that made him see it: a little, rounded nose, almost like the beginning of a pig snout. Elizabeth's was actually quite narrow and sharp. Not this nubby little thing unfurling from the wrinkles crying.

'Daddy' turned out to be the magic word for the situation as well, as Elizabeth visibly relaxed and fell back once more into her weary smile.

"I can guarantee you five thousand percent that he's yours," she said.

But he was too caught up in picking out the other things. The ears. The way the boy's hairless eyebrows framed his dark eyes. The knobby quirk to the thumb on the hand that eventually twined around Meliodas's finger.

It was a good thing he had beaten Ban unconscious, because Meliodas hugged the bundle of baby to his chest and positively bawled.


	4. Discipline

4

It was phenomenal to him that a three year old could be more destructive than the combined latent power of the seven most drunk and powerful Holy Knights of the kingdom. But unless the little boy was properly sealed away in a magical sealed cube, within seconds of Meliodas's back being turned, some horrible calamity would be unleashed on his tavern. Sometimes, not even the barrier was enough.

Like today. As Meliodas stared at the small sea of smashed bottles and alcohol trickling out from beneath the bar, even three thousand years of living didn't stop him from digging his hands into his hair. The said barrier he'd set out at the foot of the stairs had a tall-tale tear right down the middle. Damn it, he couldn't afford this!

"Fineas," he said in a deathly quiet which would have made any living thing other than said child tremble. "Fineas, where are you?"

"Ho?" came a questioning, and of course, unaffected chirp from the other side of the tavern.

Meliodas stomped across the room. Very little ruffled him, but this had been the third time that week. The kid had a love for destruction that his mother found disturbing, and the deafening crash of glass was like music to the half-demon's ears. What baffled his parents the most was how he managed to reach the shelf let alone smash every bottle.

But it was the broken glass Meliodas found himself burning for. Just one of those full bottles of rum in the right place on a little boy's head—and the cut he'd gotten on his hand the last time-

He came round the corner, teeth on end, ready to see big witty kid eyes to bursting with false innocence—

And saw nothing.

Meliodas frowned. "Fineas?"

"Ho?"

From the sound, Meliodas was practically on top of him. He twisted, peeked under the bar, the unarmed shelf, boots crunching across broken glass. No demon spawn.

"Fineas? Where are you?"

"Hoooo!" said the little voice, high with delight and ending with a giggle.

The hairs on the back of his neck did a familiar little tickle. Eyebrows high, Meliodas finally looked up.

Sprawled out on a rafter with his little arms and legs dangling off like a monkey was a blond, big eyed, pale little boy with a pair of tiny gray wings.

He shrieked with both fear and delight at being found.

"Daddydaddydaddydaddy!"

So that's how he had reached the shelf. "Get down here or your butt is going to be pinker than Hawk!"

In response, the little boy just squealed and hid his face behind the rafter, his little giggles muffled into the wood.

"So you think you're safe?" said Meliodas with a humorless smirk. "Think my threats have no power over you?"

More giggles. The little wings shivered.

"I'm giving you one last warning, Fineas. Get down here. If you can go up, I know you can go down."

"No-peh!" The wings even retracted, disappearing to wherever he had been hiding them.

"Yes."

"Hee hee—NOPE! Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddy—heeeeeeeeee!"

Freaking little imp. "Alright then."

And with one, well aimed jump, before the little boy could blink, he was back down to ground level, under his daddy's arm, pants to his knees and little rump bare to the world.

Meliodas was a man of his word. Those little buns became pinker than a well done sunburn.

Fineas wailed. But Meliodas's wrath had yet to run its course.

"What did we say about touching those bottles?"

Wailing.

"I need an answer, kid."

"Daddy said no!"

"That's right. I said no twice. Does that mean you need to be spanked twice?"

"Noooooooo!"

"And then you didn't come down when I told you to. In fact, you laughed at my face. That's three times you've disobeyed me. Does that mean three spanks?"

"NOOOOOOO! MOOOMMMMEEEEE!"

"Mommy's at the doctor having a baby, remember? And even if she wasn't, she wouldn't be saving you. You've disobeyed her as well. That's four spanks."

The little boy squirmed and writhed, wailing in despair, the promise of great rivers of snot budding from his nose.

"Well, apparently one spank isn't enough to get it through your head to not break bottles, so," he slapped the tiny butt. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Since that added to four, Meliodas pulled up the pants and finally set his boy on the floor. Fineas didn't even try to stand, but threw himself back down on his belly to howl his utter misery.

For a minute, Meliodas just sat on the stool nearest to him and watched the three year old sob on the floor and occasionally mutter how mean his daddy was. He wondered if his father ever felt like he did whenever he had him in purgatory, but Meliodas did away with that thought instantly. His father had found sadistic pleasure in that. Meliodas found no pleasure in this. In fact, he hated punishing his son. Three years wasn't nearly enough to erase the image of the tiny, wrinkly little babe, and according to other parent's reports, no amount of years ever would.

So, after he figured enough time had passed to sink the message in, he reached down and scooped up the snotty little boy in his arms. Like his father, Fineas was surprisingly small for his age. But because of that, he fit into the crook of his daddy's arm just right.

"I don't like spanking you," said Meliodas honestly. "I don't like making you unhappy at all. But you could get really hurt from all that broken glass. Remember when it cut your hand? What if it cut deeper and bigger and all over you? What if a bottle fell on your head? You could die."

Fineas gave a little hiccup and looked up at him through bleary eyes. "Dead?"

"Yes. Like dead dead. Dead gone."

"Nut'uh."

"Yes huh. And Mommy and I love you with all our hearts and it would…hurt us and make us so sad if you got hurt. That's why you need to do as we tell you to, so we can keep you safe. That's why I have to spank you if you don't do as we say so you don't do it again." Meliodas narrowed his eyes and gave his son the full brunt of his rare glower. "If you do that again it will be five spanks and Daddy's food for a week."

Fineas's pink rimmed eyes went big as plates. He opened his mouth to let out a big no, but the upheaval of horror must have been too much for his young mind to process into words, because it just became a big wail and another round of tears.

As Meliodas hugged his son to his shoulder and patted his back, he couldn't help but smile a little. He had always known his cursed cooking skills would be of use someday.


	5. The Future of Parents

5

Defeating the Demon King did not give Britannia world peace.

The night after his daughter turned four (at least four by demon and goddess standards, as their children aged much more slowly than humans), an assassin back at the capital on the other side of the continent killed the king and his eldest daughter Margaret. The only reason princess Veronica had lived was because she had been on her own estate with her husband, Sir Griamore.

They found out that very night when Merlin teleported to their doorstep.

"Something's afoot in the kingdom," she had said lowly. "No assassin should be able to make it past my enchantments except those who have the rites. It's an inside job."

Elizabeth didn't ask anything. She simply took to her bedroom. Meliodas finished drilling Merlin for any detail and went upstairs, quietly glad that both of his kids were asleep.

He found her sitting on the bed, staring out the window, face dry but eyes dark, even as they looked straight into the moon's light.

What should he say? It would be stupid to ask if she was alright. It would be stupider to ask if there was anything to make it better. This was simple, blunt, ugly tragedy.

So he settled with sitting beside's her and pulling her hand into his lap, rubbing the fingers lightly.

"If I think about it, I've lost loads of family," she said in flat voice. "Almost two hundred lifetimes of family."

"Their lives had already been extended by Merlin's magic, though. They've lived a full and happy lifetime."

She looked down, hiding her eyes from the moon, and therefore, from him.

"Fineas will be devastated," she whispered.

"You already are. See to yourself first. You won't be able to help him if you're broken all over the place."

"But I just said," tears dripped off her lowered chin. "I shouldn't. I've lost lots of family."

"That doesn't make it hurt any less." Images of dead Elizabeth, over and over, flashed across his mind's eye. "When you love someone, it hurts every time."

She clung to him then, most likely knowing what he was remembering, and sobbed. He angled himself against the pillows so she could nestle in his chest like she loved to and let her cry, stroking her head. He wanted to comfort her by saying he would find and kill whoever did this, but he knew Elizabeth found no joy in killing, even of the wicked. That didn't mean he couldn't tell it to the hot anger making his throat hurt and his insides burn.

And there was another problem…

"Merlin said it had to be someone especially powerful to have gotten past her protection spells," he said beneath her sobs and next to her ear. "It might be that time…"

Elizabeth stiffened and sat up. "No! The babies are too young, they can't even—"

"Fineas is stronger than you give him credit."

"But not against someone like that! And Clara, what about Clara? No-no-no, I refuse! I will die before I leave my babies alone."

Meliodas didn't like the idea either, but they had already stretched the limits of the treaty by lingering in human lands as long as they had. At first, it was because it was the only place Meliodas and Elizabeth could be together. But, as they eventually came to understand it, that place would only tolerate them so long. Humans had short lives and shorter memories, after all, and the demon and goddess world were impatient to have their rightful rulers back.

It made him ache, which served to anger him even more.

"I wasn't saying that we would, only that we should consider it," he said. "They'll still be able to grow up and blend in with humans. Maybe find a nice—"

She slapped him.

"NO!"

For the first time in eons, he found his anger directed at her. "I'm only trying to protect my family—"

"You're being a coward! We will stay and defend our children, even if it means singling them out from the humans as different. Even if we have to destroy a whole country, I will not leave my babies!"

Meliodas put a hand to his stinging cheek, but didn't sigh. He got off the bed, walked out the door, and back downstairs.

Merlin had been wise, as she was nowhere in sight.

He came around to the bar and sat down, not missing how the old stool creaked. One hundred years he had run this bar. One hundred years of moving around to hide his and his family's slow aging. One hundred years his Fineas had to learn about life and defending himself and his own destructive and healing abilities. One hundred years to learn about the short, temperamental nature of humans.

And to make matters worse, he could smell the aroma Elizabeth gave off when she was pregnant. He knew because it always made him anxious and up the wall horny no matter the circumstances. It was a scent that could never be duplicated.

Small, quiet footsteps came down the stairs.

"Dad?"

It wasn't Fineas, as he had expected, being a lighter sleeper than his sister.

He smiled, a drop of soothing falling into the brooding he'd fallen into. The small, delicate image before him illicited a wave of love no matter his mood. Unlike her brother, who looked like a blond mini-me of Elizabeth, Clara looked every bit like her father, green eyes and all. Ban often joked that he now knew Meliodas would make a stinking cute girl.

"What's up, sweet pea?"

Clara hugged her stuffed rabbit to her face. It would have been a threadbare scrap of fabric if it weren't for Merlin's magic and Elizabeth's care. The spotted rabbit had only recently become a resident of the bed rather than Clara's constant companion.

Which meant, if she was holding it, something had disturbed her greatly.

Meliodas leaned down on the stool and opened his arms. "Come on. Tell me what's going on. Do I need to beat someone up?" Ooooh, how he looked forward to the day when he could beat every unworthy man that even looked askance at her.

Clara shifted her feet, than showed her wet, large green eyes between the bunny's ears.

"You're going to leave us?"

A pang went through his heart. Of course she had to hear the worst part of that conversation.

"We're not leaving you, sweatie," he gave an inward sigh. "Mommy made that very clear."

Tears bubbled out from her eyes. "You want to leave me?"

"No! Never! Oh, Clara, please let me hold you. Everything's alright, I promise."

Only then did she cross the distance and threw herself into his arms. His perfect little mini-me.

"Then why—why did you—" she hiccupped from having held down the tears too hard.

"Because one day you and your brother will have to go into the world without us. Be like the humans, that's all."

"But we already have human friends."

"And if you've noticed, once they start growing up, we have to move so they don't notice that you aren't growing up with them."

Big sniff. "Why?"

"You know why. Remember what Big Auntie said?"

"People…humans get scared of different…at least a lot do."

He nodded in approval. "And then they can get mean. And…" he hesitated, wondering if it was too early to try and explain his and Elizabeth's misplacement in the world.

"You and Mom have to go home…huh? With the goddess and demons stuff."

That surprised him, but then it shouldn't. Clara had always shown an unnaturally quick wit. At least compared to the cackling imp her brother was at her age.

"Until we can find our own place," he said carefully. "Like the fairy's have their forest, and the giants have their land."

"But we have land."

"We have a giant pig," he said bluntly, which made her laugh wetly. She wiped her face across his shirt, leaving behind a shiny trail of snot.

"But we have a pig," she said, with a sad little smile only little kids forced to laugh against their will can have. "Mama Pig can be our land, right?"

"But what about when you get married and have babies? And their babies have babies? And Fineas has babies?"

She wrinkled her brow, whether in displeasure or confusion, he didn't know, until she said, rather forcefully, "I don't want babies, and Fineas is a jerk. I stay with Mommy and Dad forever."

He had to smile at that and stroked her golden hair much as he had with her mother.

"I'd love that. But you will probably feel differently when you're older."

"No I won't!"

Great. Now he had all the women of the house angry with him.

Meliodas heaved a sigh.

"Alright. Whatever you want. Do you need me to tuck you into bed?"

She nodded, and her loosened hold on the bunny spoke to her anxieties being appeased.

As he lifted her up, a single, white wing fluttered into being. She had two, but they were lopsided and uneven and often didn't appear at the same time. Fineas tormented her about that endlessly as he flapped above her head with his own gray. The little white wing fluttered as though it were made of air behind them as he took her up the stairs and into the bedroom she shared with Fineas.

The little bed he had carved for her cupped her close, like a giant's hands.

He kissed her head. "I love you."

"Love too."

With a smile, he left to make amends with Elizabeth. In a way, she was right. For better or for worse, they needed to stay for their children until their children didn't need them anymore.

And he couldn't help but hope that that day would never come.


End file.
